Course on Additive Manufacturing

Additive manufacturing is defined as the process of depositing the material layer upon layer to build the parts/components/products from a three-dimensional design model data. The term “3D printing” is increasingly used as a synonym for Additive Manufacturing. Additive Manufacturing is more accurate in that it describes a professional production technique which is clearly distinguished from conventional methods of material removal.Additive manufacturing enables a design driven manufacturing process since it provides a high degree of design freedom, the optimisation and integration of functional features which allows for highly complex structures which can still be extremely light and stable.Additive Manufacturing builds up components layer by layer using the materials which are available in the form of fine powder. A range of different metals, plastics and composite materials are commonly used. This process also suits for manufacture of small batch sizes at reasonable unit costs with a high degree of product customisation.  The strengths of Additive Manufacturing lie in those areas where conventional manufacturing reaches its limitations. The technology will be of help where a new approach to design and manufacturing is required so as to come up with solutions.